


AN 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT AMHERST, 



BEFORE THE 



MEMBERS OF THE SOCIAL UNION, 



7 JULY, 187s, 



BY 

CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



1875. 



AN 



ADDRESS 

DELIVERED AT AMHERST, 




MEMBERS OF THE SOCIAL UNION, 



7 JULY, 187s, 



CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. 



1875. 



G p y 2* 




RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 









A- 




This Address, originally prepared at the request of 
the literary societies of Amherst, was delivered be- 
fore them on the 7th of July, 1875. Subsequently the 
author having received from the societies of Colby 
University at Waterville, an earnest invitation to that 
effect, consented to repeat it before them on the 27th 
of July, 1875. It is now printed as a necessary sequel 
to an address before the ^ b K made by him at Cam- 
bridge on the same subject on the 26th June, 1873. 



ADDRESS. 



Gentlemen of THE--^*ei-AL Union : — 

AT my time of Ji^J, think I may take it for 
granted that by accepting your earnest invita- 
tion to address such an assembly as I see before me, 
I incur no suspicion of indulging a vain hope to 
shine. Whatever aspirations I may have harbored in 
youth, for the honors that attend upon these occa- 
sions, have been either sufficiently gratified or alto- 
gether outlived. I now consent to serve only when 
indulging a hope, however presumptuous, that some 
practical good may grow out of it. I remember that 
this is the season usually devoted to a survey of the 
state of the higher education among us, when an op- 
portunity is offered for a careful examination as well 
of what more is found necessary to be added, as of 
what has been successfully attained ; as well of the 
progress for the future, as of the advance in the past. 
It is, then, a season for speaking not altogether the 
language of optimism, but rather, in a frank though 
kindly spirit, words of straightforward application to 
the requirements of the period in which we live. 

And when I use the word " optimism," you will be 
kind enough to understand it as denoting that species 
of self-gratulation, the habitual resort to which has 
been long made a subject of reproach to us by the 
censorious of older nations. Our tendency to it can- 



6 ADDRESS. 

not be honestly denied. It peeped out early in our 
history on a singular occasion, which it will do us no 
harm now to call to remembrance. Scarcely had 
seven years passed from our happy attainment of that 
glorious prize, — a solid form of federal government, in 
defiance of serious resistance, — when the representa- 
tives chosen by the people to constitute the great 
deliberative assembly of the country thought fit to 
propose in a grave public address to the President, to 
announce that this young nation, hardly chipping its 
outer shell, was already " the freest and most enlight- 
ened in the world." A debate of two days ensued, not 
marked so much by mistrust of the audacity of the 
assumption as by the glaring inconsistency induced 
by party spirit, which vigorously denied either firm- 
ness or wisdom to the very first administration of the 
government, supported though it was by the most 
brilliant talent in the land, collected under the sanc- 
tion of the great and good Washington himself. A 
curious prologue this to the drama of " the most en- 
lightened nation in the world ! " Even after the lapse 
of eighty years there is no reading more edifying than 
is found in the report of this angry discussion. At 
its close, the majority, appearing to begin to mistrust 
their attitude, consented to abandon the lofty preten- 
sion of superiority over all the rest of the w^orld, and 
retreated to the more modest assumption that we were 
not the most, but " a free and enlightened nation," 
And so this matter remains embalmed in the national 
record down to the present hour. 

" A free and enlightened nation," — let us stop here 
for a moment, to examine how far, in the face of other 
and older nations, we were entitled to confidence in 



ADDRESS. 7 

then placing ourselves even on a level with them. 
We had indeed gained our political independence 
with the aid of one of them, and were free from sub- 
jection to any temporal sway ; but the experiment of 
our capacity to govern ourselves, the true definition 
of a free people, having utterly failed for six years, 
had been in successful operation for barely the same 
length of time. It was at the very moment passing 
through its first severe^ordeal. Not much, we must 
admit, to boast of yet. As to the claim to be enlight- 
ened, the settlement of that necessarily depended upon 
the meaning attached to the word " light." Here com- 
parison with other nations was inevitable. If the test 
was to be made to consist of the degree of advance 
in science, literature, learning, and the arts, it is 
clear that what we had acquired was not of native 
growth, but had reached us at second hand from the 
mother country. In Great Britain, indeed, there was 
just then a bright dawn, and people were waking from 
the lethargy into which the accession of the two Ger- 
man Georges to the sovereignty had plunged them. 
Then burst forth the era of Chatham and Burke, of 
Pitt and Fox, of Gibbon and Hume, of Johnson and 
Goldsmith, of Gray and Cowper, of Adam Smithy 
Dugald Stewart and the founders of the Scotch 
school of philosophy and literature. 

Passing across the channel to the still brighter 
region of France, it was all alive with intellectual 
movement. Need I mention Voltaire and Buffon, 
Rousseau and Diderot, Quesnay, Helvetius, Necker, 
Mirabeau, Condorcet, Turgot, and De Mably, not to 
mention the zealous laborers of the Academy, who 
shed so much light, at once, to over-excite the sensi- 
bilities of that extraordinary people. 



8 ADDRESS. 

In contrast with this brilliant development of intel- 
lectual activity, what had we at the same period to 
present? Benjamin Franklin was pretty much the 
embodiment of the whole stock of original genius. A 
small class of graduates from the colleges North and 
South, educated to the higher professions, some of 
whom became eloquent divines and others grew into 
statesmen; a youth, here and there, producing a 
spirited occasional ode, — these embraced pretty much 
all the original enlightenment of the generation. I 
had nearly forgotten to remind you of the solitary 
muse of African origin whose scattered leaves of in- 
spiration were deemed of merit sufficient to justify 
the collection of them into a printed book graced by 
the patronage and subscription of the father of his 
country, the illustrious Washington. Alas for the 
American genius of that day ! I wonder how many 
of you, my young friends, ever saw or heard of the 
book of poems by Phillis Wheatley ? 

Yet, though it cannot be pretended that, in the 
large sense of the term, the enlightenment of Amer- 
ica in that day was of any other kind than such as 
the moon may boast relatively to the sun, it is on 
the other hand not unreasonable to claim for it an 
unusual measure of general intelligence, acquired by 
familiarity with the mere rudiments of knowledge. 
If the test were confined simply to the relative num- 
bers of persons able to read and write, I am not sure 
that the claim advanced by the Congress of 1796 
would appear so extravagant. And although great 
efforts have been since made in many parts of Europe 
to spread the same advantages far and wide, I feel 
quite confident that our corresponding labors to the 



ADDRESS. 9 

same end during an equal time have been successful 
in quite even proportions. Neither is this condition 
of things likely to degenerate. On the contrary, the 
probabilities are now that in the due course of events 
and with the facilities everywhere afforded, even 
among the negroes, as well as the immigrants flock- 
ing from all other climes, the day may not be far dis- 
tant when the primal instruction shall be found to 
have extended coequally with the multiplication of 
our numbers. Toward the arrival at this result, the 
attractions of the public press will perhaps contrib- 
ute even more than the elaborate machinery of the 
schools. Curiosity and the force of social emulation 
tempt the dullest and most indifferent to master what 
would scarcely be accomplished either by reasoning 
or force. 

Assuming this view to be substantially correct, 
there seems to be little cause left for uneasiness on 
this side of the question of universal education. 

The case is altered when I turn my eyes in a direc- 
tion diametrically opposite, and look for a correspond- 
ing development there. Where are the men to come 
from, potent to leaven these growing multitudes with 
the very essence of all elevation in life } It is not so 
much the object of an average education that is in 
question, as of the infusion of the highest elements of 
power which stimulate the advance of enlarged public 
opinion and consequent action in great communities. 
This seems to be the great want of the country at the 
present moment. Faithful, energetic, and effective as 
I am ready to maintain the great body of teachers to 
be in our highest institutions of learning, I regret to 
say that I have not found such as I meet so much im- 



iO ADDRESS. 

pressed as I am with the magnitude of their responsi- 
bilities in certain directions where the call seems to 
me to be the most imperative. 

That call in my view is not so much for the greater 
accumulation of learning in the abstract, as for the 
capacity to make a quicker and broader application of 
it to the ever-recurring emergencies of the times. 

My object, then, in consenting to address you, is to 
explain the reason of the faith that is in me. It does 
not relate so much to promise as to performance ; 
not so much to theory as* to action, in the career to 
which you may respectively look forward. A condi- 
tion of things is impending here and elsewhere, which 
bids fair materially to change the relative influence of 
the agencies that aflect the civilized world. Force 
can no longer be depended on as a permanent ad- 
junct to political power. The pen works more subtly, 
to effect more durable results. 

Power is gathered more steadily through the hu- 
man voice than the material muscle. Whilst the nat- 
ural impulse of the many is still and will probably 
long continue to be to crowd around the person of a 
military hero, and set him up as an object of idolatry, 
the stability of the influence thus created is no longer 
exactly what it was years ago. The press is a greater 
power in the long run than the sword. One conse- 
quence inevitably follows. The men who, through 
the marvelous sympathies which they can direct 
toward the formation of public opinion, can shake 
even thrones, should be persons not picked up at 
random by reason of an accidental facility or grace 
of style, or flexibility of voice, but rather those richly 
stored by education with intellectual and moral re- 



ADDRESS. 1 1 

sources, and practiced in the art of placing them 
attractively as well as convincingly before the world, 
— in other words, who shall prove the very elect of 
the agonistse of our colleges. 

So, too, another class who may feel in themselves a 
capacity as well as an honorable ambition to supply a 
growing demand for better leaders on the platform or 
in the forum, than such as come up by chance, ought 
not longer to be made to trust the uncertain guidance 
of theoretical speculators without confidence in them- 
selves, or faith in their occupation, but should raise 
up a new body of instructors, especially trained in the 
art of imparting to them a share of their own enthu- 
siasm, as well as the control of every element that 
can contribute to the formation of a noble style and 
exalted oratory. And in using these terms I beg, 
once for all, to caution you, that I do not intend to 
convey an idea of the mere mastery of the necessary 
attitudes to engage sympathy or invite applause, but 
of the deep foundation of intellectual, moral, and 
physical culture upon which all external accomplish- 
ments may be naturally and healthily superinduced. 

I am the more urgent in pressing this point on 
your attention at this time, that I have reason to be- 
lieve very different notions to have been long preva- 
lent in some of the highest in repute of our colleges. 
Indeed, it has happened to myself to hear with my 
own ears all attempts at improvement in oratory ab- 
solutely ridiculed as on a level with the lessons of a 
dancing master. 

Yet were so narrow a conception of this branch of 
education absolutely correct, even then it would not 
be altogether unworthy of our consideration. When 



12 ADDRESS. 

the great orator Demosthenes made his first experi- 
ment before the popular assembly at Athens, which 
ended in his complete discomfiture, he was not above 
taking lessons of Satyrus the actor, in emphasis and 
grace and propriety of elocution, which encouraged 
him to go on to his splendid triumphs. How the 
absence of such aid tends to mangle and mar the best 
efforts of really strong men, it has been my lot in 
times long ago to witness, when eminent and excel- 
lent divines too freely illustrated their indifference 
to such arts by the poverty of their own example. 
I regretted that such doctrines were upheld then as I 
do that they are cherished now. And it is one object 
of the appeal I make, to-day, to stimulate you and the 
authorities in all other colleges, so far as it may be in 
their power, to the adoption of a diametrically oppo- 
site system. Oratory is not a trick. It is a great 
force in the state. Neither is it, as the ancient lyrist 
says of poetry, an inborn faculty, not to be created. 
I believe the soundness of neither proposition. Even 
the mysterious bard who, so many years ago, in the 
infancy of things, ushered the Iliad into the world, the 
great model poem of all later times, could never have 
developed his masterly power of rhythmic narrative, 
his close delineation of human character, his nice 
observation of nature in all external objects, and his 
splendid eloquence, by the force of mere intuition. 
Culture may raise a brute into a hero, if the rough 
material be only latent within him. Peculiarly true is 
this of the speaker. He may have natural advantages 
without number, but the great triumphs of his power 
can never be reached without the most assiduous cul- 
tivation. He may do something by himself, but never 



ADDRESS. 1 3 

SO effectually as with effective guidance from abroad. 
The facilities to promote his usefulness ought to be 
nowhere so abundant as in the best endowed of our 
public colleges. 

But in saying these words let me guard myself from 
misconception. The education that I contemplate in 
this connection is not the bare study of the construc- 
tion of paragraphs or the modes of enunciating them 
in a way to produce the greatest possible effect on 
others. No. It is much deeper and broader. It 
entwines itself with all other branches of knowledge. 
The mind must first be stored, and next be itself dis- 
ciplined. Logic, philosophy, history, are as indispen- 
sable as rhetoric. It is Plutarch who tells us of 
Pericles, the Athenian statesman, that " he made 
great use of the doctrines of Anaxagoras the philoso- 
pher, as an instrument to raise his style to a sublimity 
suitable to the greatness of his spirit and the dignity 
of his manner of life, rendering his eloquence more 
splendid and majestic by the rich tincture which it 
received from philosophy." But where, I ask, is 
there a philosopher Anaxagoras of the present day.? 
Does he shine by reflection in our halls of debate, in 
our pulpits, or in the forum, or on the platform ? Not 
as he should do, if our colleges did their whole duty. 
Not as he should do, if our people were faithfully 
taught their whole duty. 

It may be laid down as an indispensable condition 
of true eloquence that the thought of the speaker 
should be prepared habitually to move on a lofty 
plane. Then only can there be full security that his 
language and composition will be justly accommo- 
dated to the demands of each particular occasion, and 



14 ADDRESS. 

the harmony of his reasoning be in just accordance 
with the end which he hopes to attain. Passing from 
the general consideration of the propriety of infusing 
into the abodes of education an elevated and compre- 
hensive fashion of study of all questions of world-wide 
interest, whether guided through the pen or by the 
voice, I now come to an exposition of my reasons why 
I think the present moment most particularly calling 
for a development of the qualities I most desire to see 
cultivated among the youth of our colleges and uni- 
versities. Perhaps I may be wrong, but to my eye 
an important change in the modes both of thought 
and feeling has been wrought during the last ten 
years in this country ; a change, however, not abso- 
lutely confined within our borders, though marking 
its progress with the most rapidity here. On this oc- 
casion, I shall not attempt to span the entire extent 
of so wide an arch. My time is short, and I confine 
myself to speculation upon two topics only : — 

1. The decline of sensitiveness to the force of 
purely moral obligation in civil life. 

2. The spread of indifference, if not of skepticism, 
in the church, on the one hand, and of ritual worship 
on the other. 

In dealing with the first subject, far be it from me 
to inspire you with the apprehension of a vehement 
political harangue. My desire is to keep as far as 
possible free from all speculation, excepting that which 
has for its object some ends to gain which education 
at our colleges may be usefully quickened. 

You are doubtless all so far familiar with the or- 
ganism of our forms of civil government as to render 
it superfluous for me to more than allude to it. It 



ADDRESS. 1 5 

will be enough, if you comprehend the nature of the 
fundamental distribution of power into three parts, 
each intended to act as a check upon the other. All 
this has been laid down so clearly in the original 
papers of the Federalist, on the structure of the Con- 
stitution, that I shall take it for granted you under- 
stand it fully. These three active forces, the execu- 
tive, the legislative, and the judicial department, are 
the several levers by which the ponderous machinery 
of state is kept on a straight and even course. No 
change or modification can happen to either which 
will not be likely to more or less impair the efficacy 
of the rest as well as the steadiness of the general 
movement, too. For a great many years this admira- 
bly contrived machine worked with as little friction as 
could be reasonably expected from any contrivance of 
merely human origin ; and little was heard of imper- 
fection seriously threatening its operations for the 
future with equal exactness. Neither was the confi- 
dence thus earned ill-founded. Unfortunately, a prin- 
ciple of corruption was permitted latterly to creep in, 
which disturbed the healthy action of the machinery. 
The executive power was rashly confided to feeble 
hands, and the consequence has been that a large share 
of its vital energy has been transferred to, and divided 
among, those holding for the moment the legislative 
power, to whom it was never the intention to intrust 
it. Out of this solitary change have issued the seeds 
of moral disintegration which have blossomed and 
borne fruit far and wide. Hence the obtuseness to the 
conception of obligation which has been made so 
patent of late years, still more in the tone of discus- 
sion than in the actual legislation of the land. Here 



1 6 ADDRESS. 

it is that the question of the philosopher, Hobbes, ap- 
pears to have much greater force in the detail than in 
the connection in which he applied it : " What is it 
to divide the powers of the Commonwealth but to 
dissolve it ? " To all great political trusts a corre- 
sponding weight of responsibility must be attached, 
or there is no security. The surrender of this power 
of patronage, in a large measure, into the hands of 
three or four hundred legislators, with no permanent 
responsibility, is equivalent to the formation of an 
equal number of beds of corruption, in which the 
whole welfare of the country is made subordinate to 
the interests of narrow and selfish combinations of 
men, spread over every nook and corner of the land. 
Can it, then, be a cause of surprise that there has been 
a decline of sensitiveness to the force of purely moral 
obligation in civil life ? 

But when I allude to this growing corruption of 
parties in our Republic, I do not indulge any purpose 
to inveigh against them as the cause of all this de- 
generacy. In every country where free institutions 
are established, and the will of the majority governs, 
differences of opinion on important questions are 
inevitable among honest and independent thinkers. 
Action can only be directed by the will of the greater 
number, who unite in sentiment so far as to effect 
that result. The selection of agents follows the same 
rule. Thus it is plain that the necessity of associa- 
tion, to arrive at practical results, is imperative. Hence, 
it follows that so long as opinions conflict with each 
other, the right of control must be vested in one of 
two aggregations of individual voices, and, finally, in 
that one concentrating the greatest number. I like- 



ADDRESS. 1 7 

wise concur in the proposition that it is not only a 
right but also a duty of every citizen to attach himself 
to one of these associations to the extent that he may 
deem his own views of the general good promoted 
thereby. Purely solitary voting is in its utility much 
like the act of a soldier who should fire his piece to 
bring down the sun. 

All this reasoning, however, must be predicated on 
the fact that the opposing forces are free from all but 
legitimate influences, contributing to the attainment 
of honest ends. The very instant evidence is given 
justifying a conviction of the supremacy of corrupt 
counsels, guided by venal agents, for selfish aims, 
then the duty to secede from all participation in such 
results becomes absolute and paramount. If ever the 
time should arrive when the vermin swarming in offi- 
cial hot-beds become sufficiently numerous to spread 
completely over the net-work of a party organization, 
then will a contingency arise demanding from those 
determined to maintain the political purity of the 
country the organization of a distinctive policy, and 
the advance of a different order of men to guide it. 

And here I come to the pinch of the question. I 
look around me to discover where a class of men to 
lead in such occasions is to come from. They must 
be persons more or less thoroughly trained for the ar- 
duous responsibility of the position. Standing on the 
solid foundation of philosophy in its purest ethical 
form, well versed in the history of the past, ancient 
as well as modern, conversant with law in its highest 
and broadest sense, they should be at the same time 
equally armed with the sharpest weapons of contro- 
versy, and those graces in speaking and writing which 

3 



15 ADDRESS. 

fasten to them the attention and confidence of multi- 
tudes in all free communities. Above all, they must 
be keenly observant of the characteristics of the peo- 
ple among whom they live. Lastly, they must labor 
to fortify the heroic element in their nature, at least 
so far as, whilst never needlessly provoking popular 
indignation, to be able to rise on an emergency above 
all dread of personal danger, when upholding the 
right and the true, however unwelcome to the popular 
agitation of the moment. 

Such is the class which the current of events ap- 
pears to invite to take charge of the publications so 
rapidly appearing of late years under the name of the 
Independent Press, Such is the most potent check I 
can imagine possible upon the abuses of party asso- 
ciations, pushed to the extreme degree of corruption 
under the crafty manipulations of seductive dema- 
gogues. Yet, let me not, by these words, be understood 
as desiring to encourage any of that reckless style 
of dealing with public questions, however fascinating 
on the surface, which sometimes wins an ephemeral 
repute from the mere vigor of denunciation or invec- 
tive. The once famous letters of Junius, in their day 
adopted as a model by a school of imitators, furnish 
a memorable example, as well of the extent to which 
a vigorous pen can succeed in leading the minds of a 
nation, as of the paltry uses to which it may be put, 
chiefly to gratify cowardly malignity. No such spirit, 
however cunningly disguised, is called for in any hon- 
est emergency. What this country demands of the 
higher education is, that the pupils should be carefully 
prepared to move with power over the elevated plane 
which its progressive material development is con- 



ADDRESS. 19 

stantly opening to their view. We do not want a 
class of men greedy for the small prizes, or liable to be 
melted, like wax, by a transient ray of popular admira- 
tion. We do want men thoroughly skilled in the use 
of their weapons, armed to the teeth in the steel of 
moral analysis, trenchant of sophistry under whatever 
guise, and yet, on the other hand, equally strong to up- 
hold truth and honor and justice, even though at the 
peril of occasional obloquy. Such should be the 
product of this age of advancing civilization. Just 
such men should our colleges strive to send forth from 
their portals to take responsible posts in all momen- 
tous struggles of the times. Neither let it be imag- 
ined that these struggles are so severe, the triumph 
so rare, or the rewards so mean in a career like this, 
as to deter even the timid from taking an active part. 
Great as the sacrifice may happen occasionally to be, 
the victory when it comes is often more than a com- 
mensurate reward. A skillful director of the minds 
of multitudes, in all civilized nations enjoying a rea- 
sonable portion of freedom through the medium of 
the press, may be far more potent than many a sover- 
eign ; and however much of tribulation he may occa- 
sionally endure, he can hardly fail, if he be equal to 
his task, to be ranked, should he be ambitious of fame 
and fortune, ultimately among the true magnates of 

I have now said all that I meant to say relative to 
the demand of the country upon its colleges for a class 
of accomplished scholars who may become fitting ex- 
ponents of sound and pure doctrine through the means 
of an elevated and responsible press. 

I turn to my other topic, not of inferior importance 



20 ADDjRESS. 

and far more difficult to treat, but which I trust I may 
dispose of more briefly. That is, — 

2. The growth in the church of indifference on the 
one hand and of ritualism on the other, the former de- 
veloping into skepticism, the other into superstition, — 
neither of them a healthy symptom in the Christian 
world. 

Am I right in my observation of this tendency not 
merely in America, but over a great part of Christen- 
dom } If so, the causes are not in my mind far to 
seek. I shall treat of them here solely in connection 
with my subject, the demands of the age upon its 
colleges. 
'It/ Religion, the bond between mankind and a sover- 
/ eign Creator beyond the reach of the senses, is largely 
compounded of the two strongest passions engrafted 
in the race. The one, love, the other, fear. These 
forces irresistibly prompt the worship of that unknown 
Cause in ways more or less regulated by reason. In 
one class, emotion predominates. In the other, it is 
in large measure qualified by reflection. The former 
depends upon effects produced on the imagination 
through the presentation of images to the sense. The 
latter is equally maintained by the pressure of argu- 
ments forcibly convincing to the reason. So long as 
these forces moved in harmony under the common 
standard of the Saviour and his revelation, there was 
no sufficient jar among the forms of faith seriously to 
impair the unity of the church he founded. But the 
temptation of temporal power came in, and it opened 
a door to discord which ultimately rent it in twain. 
The result we all know. The Papal and Protestant 
powers have now for centuries maintained toward 



ADDRESS. 2 1 

each other an attitude of antagonism. But during 
this interval the condition of these opposing forces 
has been very differently affected. Whilst on the one 
side the Roman church has steadily rallied all its fol- 
lowers upon its central point of union, emotion stimu- 
lated by fear, the Protestants, planting themselves on 
the right of private judgment, have seen their unity 
slowly and steadily impaired until the multiplicity of 
conflicting doctrines has completely undermined the 
strength springing from a common bond of faith. 

Thus it turns out that while the Pope has lately 
been formally invested with powers little short of om- 
nipotence over the faith and duty of countless mil- 
lions of the human race, the Protestant Church, which 
once fought against him shoulder to shoulder, when 
animated by one spirit, and which then won its liberty, 
finds itself exposed to a danger never dreamed of at 
the start, — the danger of disintegration, spreading so 
far and wide as even to pass from the scorching fire 
of faith to the solid ice of entire unbelief. 

It was the master mind of the eloquent Bossuet 
who powerfully touched this chord, dissuading doubt- 
ers wandering in uncertain paths from leaving the 
only permanent standard of faith. And his argument 
remains to this day the most dextrous and persua- 
sive of all resorted to by his school. It cannot be 
disputed that over millions of the race who cling to 
support from a higher power against the promptings 
of a tender conscience and the fear of the torments of 
the damned, the force of an authority to relieve, sus- 
tained by the most effective appeals to the imagina- 
tion, becomes positively absolute. 

Against this powerful array drawn up to catch the 



22 ADDRESS. 

common mind, what has been relied upon as effective 
to stay the conscience and quiet the terrors of myr- 
iads of earnest yet anxious dissidents ? The chief 
resource has been calm appeals to naked reason 
maintained by partisan arguments. For a while this 
proved strong enough to hold many generations in 
their places, excellent people as ever lived, stern and 
zealous upholders of what to them appeared as solemn 
gospel truth. So long as the spirit of controversy 
was kept alive, no matter in what direction, against 
Rome abroad or backsliders at home, there was little 
danger of decay. It is peace and harmony that has 
bred indifference and desertion. Indifference toler- 
ated the introduction of doubt and uncertainty. Then 
followed the desertion of churches not provided with 
especial objects of attraction, either imposing ceremo- 
nies or preachers seductive, whether by their dramatic 
accomplishments or their startling extravagance. On 
the one hand appeared multitudes crowding toward 
lame imitations of the splendor of Roman ritualism, 
and, on the other, eager devotees to the fantastic sen- 
timentalism of dancing-masters in the pulpit. Then, 
too, the ice-bound scoffer had the courage to make 
himself seen, and to pretend that he who saw no fut- 
ure at all was the wisest of the prophets. 

This may appear to some of you to be much too 
charged a picture of the present religious state of 
Christendom. And, even if conceded to be but par- 
tially accurate, I may be asked if I have thought of 
any counteraction or remedy. 

To which I respectfully reply that, if remedy there 
be, in my beilief it must be found in our institutions of 
education. We must raise up a fresh class of the 



AJDDJ^ESS. 23 

clergy, thoroughly fitted for the precise conflict to 
which they are called. I have reason to believe that 
the study of the arts, which make an impressive and 
zealous orator, have by some excellent people been 
regarded as utterly inconsistent with the character of 
a grave and pious preacher of the Gospel. It is the 
doctrine, only, which is essential. The manner of 
communication may be as it pleases God. The con- 
sequence of this sort of reasoning has been the pro- 
duction of many very worthy men as teachers, who 
never studied at all the modes of attracting the atten- 
tion of their hearers, and who naturally left the ex- 
periment to take care of itself What was the result ? 
Gradual but silent secession, either to cherish indiffer- 
ence at home, or else to go to more stimulating, if not 
so estimable preachers. One church possessed of a 
star performer is crowded to its utmost limits, whilst 
another, occupied by a far better but less eloquent 
man, is attended, possibly, by forty or fifty devoted 
friends, and no more. Is it a matter of wonder that 
the innocent sufferer should be discouraged } He 
has missed his path. Why ? Because when he was 
taught, all that was inculcated as necessary was sound 
doctrine. The means of making it acceptable to the 
hearer were wholly overlooked. The demand of the 
present time is for sympathy, bordering, it may be, 
upon passion. In my humble opinion there never was 
a fairer field of action to animate and confirm the 
shivering confidence of thousands in the pure doc- 
trines of the Saviour, than at this moment is pre- 
sented in these United States. There is great need 
of a revival, and of successors even to such as White- 
field and Wesley, to bring it about. I am an earnest 



24 ADDRESS. 

advocate of a special school of instruction directed to 
this end alone. I want no extravagance, and still less 
the graces of the dancing-master, but rather the lofty 
consciousness of power skillfully devoted to the pene- 
tration into the innermost recesses of the mind and 
the confirmation of the reason, and a deep well of 
sympathy from which to heal the soreness of every 
faltering heart. f ( ;, , (y Uk. (^ o T^ / m • ' ' ' ... ....-) ^ 

■■' In saying what I have, I mean no offense to those 
whose province it has been heretofore to teach in this 
department. Whilst I fully believe that in no coun- 
try are to be found a greater proportionate number of 
pious, learned, faithful, and assiduous servants in the 
church, I trust it will be no disparagement to them 
if I frankly confess a craving of many years for a 
warmer, a more effective, and a more sympathetic 
manner of communicating their valuable lessons both 
of law and love. 

I know I shall be told, as I often have been, that 
there is no use of endeavoring to instruct the young . 
to make them masters of the means of leading their 
fellow-men by oratory ; that this is a natural gift ac- 
quired at birth, which can no more be created than 
taken away. To this I can only reply that, in my 
experience many years ago, whilst officially visiting 
the primary schools in the town where I reside, I took 
some pains to observe the difference in progress be- 
tween the children there taught to read. I soon 
perceived that some learned quicker, and some bet- 
ter, than others, but that none were born readers, 
and none were unable to learn by teaching. I fur- 
ther discovered that one teacher could do a great deal 
more with all scholars than another ; but I nowhere 



ADDRESS. 25 

found children able to read at first sight ; or, if left 
alone to get on as best they could, proving good 
readers at once. So I have met with very bad read- 
ers coming from very good schools. As a general 
rule, the reading followed the will of the teacher. All 
this did not convince me that any one child was an 
orator, born like Minerva out of the brain of Jove. 
What is thus said of primary schools is equally appli- 
cable to all advanced teaching in this or other branches 
of knowledge. It will not be really effective unless 
the spirit of the teacher be communicated to his pupil 
as by an electric chain. This sort of teaching is the 
want of the present age. All the born speakers it has 
been my lot to hear have betrayed more or less defi- 
ciency. I can think of but one thoroughly accom- 
plished speaker in the Commonwealth, and he never 
failed to impress the hearer with confidence, spring- 
ing from the most careful culture. I have heard 
many speak well, who would have done much better 
if they had had good advice. Away, then, with all 
this nonsense about innate oratory or dancing-school 
instruction ! The germs of this power may be more 
thickly sown in one man than in another, but their 
full development can only be the result of careful 
education, and when the full man comes forth before 
the view of his fellow-men, where shall you find a 
more efficient instrument of good, if only his antece- 
dents have been certainly pure.? His single voice 
may not only elevate the character of his own genera- 
tion, but spread a healthy influence over that of many 
yet to come. 

Neither let any one who ventures upon the study 
of this art be discouraged by the tone of disparage- 



26 ADDRESS. 

ment which prevails in too many of our colleges. 
Let him remember that the great orator of Greece, 
Demosthenes, whose works are even now models of 
excellence well worth the study of all later genera- 
tions, signally failed in his first appearance before the 
people of Athens. Cicero, too, the most eminent of 
the many gifted speakers in the most flourishing 
period of the Roman Republic, in his first effort be- 
trayed so clearly his ignorance of the proper mode of 
modulating his voice, that he did not lose a moment 
to set about the correction of that single defect, and it 
was not till he was master of it that he trusted him- 
self to speak again. He tells his own story very 
frankly, and it furnishes a good lesson to those who 
yet maintain oratory to be a gift and not an art, down 
to the present hour. 

Thus I have spoken of the necessity of a special 
attention to instruction in our colleges to promote the 
advance in public usefulness of two classes of men 
whom for different reasons the country greatly needs 
— the independent journalist, and the impressive 
preacher. .There is yet another and almost equally 
important demand upon them, which I have scarcely 
time or space left to explain so fully as it deserves. 
I refer directly to the considerable number of young 
men who desire to distinguish themselves in the con- 
flicts waged at the bar, in the legislative forum, and 
on what we call the platform. If there be one quality 
more indispensable than another to distinction in 
these pursuits, it is that sharp mental discipline which 
shall seize at once upon the strong points in any dis- 
cussion, and concentrate power upon these alone, giv- 
ing no room to mere superfluities and redundance 



ADDRESS. 27 

The crying evil of the day, elsewhere no less than 
here, is the profuse outpouring in one indiscriminate 
mass of everything that may be said on a subject in 
the remotest degree relevant. This practice neces- 
sarily breeds frequent repetition of the same idea 
clothed in different words, and multiplication of words 
without any corresponding resource of thought. The 
effect is continuance of argument to an extent so in- 
definite as to exhaust the stoutest patience. Human 
life is not long enough to devote so great a share of 
it to the study of only those portions that may be 
carried on with the severest friction. This abuse, 
which has latterly been creeping more and more into 
the high places of justice on both sides of the Atlan- 
tic, must, if carried on hereafter on the scale it has 
been of late years, make the proper administration of 
it more or less impracticable. Who will ever travel 
through the mountains of trash heaped up in the 
columns of the congressional records 1 What library 
will be ample enough to devote to so large and so 
rapidly increasing a mass, a space which will not ulti- 
mately crowd out smaller and truly precious treas- 
ures ? I trust I may be permitted to express my 
belief that this evil springs chiefly from imperfect 
early training. The really great speeches of antiq- 
uity, which have remained as models for imitation 
down to this day, are generally quite short. Those 
which are yet read, coming from the best speakers in 
centuries prior to this one, are, most of them, within 
brief compass. The change has taken place in the 
present age. It is my own firm conviction that the 
ancient idea is the correct one. No speech, to be con- 
tinually effective upon an audience, should exceed 



28 ADDRESS. 

two hours in the deHvery. It is more likely to lose 
than gain power as it proceeds beyond one hour. 
Concentration of thought is a heavier weapon than 
expansion, and leaves a deeper stamp on the memory. 

Another topic intimately connected with the labors 
of this class of the community appears to me to be 
especially deserving of consideration, in laying the 
foundations of a career. I refer to the limits within 
which professional men, ambitious of the highest 
reputation in their sphere, may consider themselves 
justified in exerting great power in the defense of 
vice, or in the protection of persons whom they have 
the strongest reason to suspect deeply tainted with 
crime. I will frankly confess, for my own part, that 
the ordinary arguments presented in the books, in 
favor of a large liberty in this direction, upon which 
eminent and honorable men have often rested their 
justification, when embarked in such undertakings, 
never appeared to me conclusive. Lying as these 
questions do at the very foundation of morals, I can- 
not imagine a stronger call upon the directors of 
education for special attention to them in their pre- 
liminary studies. For the neglect in cultivating at an 
early age the power of nice discrimination between 
right and wrong, more educated men have dishonored 
themselves in life, than for any other cause. Igno- 
rance has been quite as often the source of error as 
evil-intent. This remark has been too strongly illus- 
trated in the experience of the last few years to need 
to be dwelt upon, at this time, more at large. 

But where, you will ask me, admitting my view to 
be a just one, is your remedy for the defect.? How 
can such loose habits of thought be concentrated .? 



ADDRESS. 29 

The answer is perfectly easy. You have the correc- 
tion in your own hands. Let the primary discipHne 
be thorough in the colleges of the country, and the 
taste of the educated class of the world will dictate 
the rest. They will award to the refined metal all the 
glory which its splendor deserves, and will leave the 
dross to be melted over for base uses in later times. 

But it is full time for me to take warning from my 
own precept. 

My young friends, I have thus labored in my feeble 
way to place before 570U the views which I honestly 
entertain of the obligations of the hour, imposed upon 
the American institutions for advanced instruction, in 
connection with peculiar portions of their duty. I am 
myself the more impressed of their importance that 
I think I see another and a different era approaching 
in our national history. It no longer presents the im- 
age of a fresh bud ; rather will it be that of the full 
flower. If I do not greatly err, the fearful events of 
the last few years, instead of impairing the integral 
elements of the state, have swept away, with a fiery 
besom, all those which threatened its solidity. The 
wondrous engines of power, contrived as if on pur- 
pose to overcome our greatest obstacles of space and 
time, are knitting a bond of interest a thousand-fold 
more durable than the metal of which they are com- 
posed. What a majestic theatre is rising before my 
vision as I think of it! — a theatre upon which every 
gifted citizen, if truly inspired by the highest virtues 
implanted in humanity, may, in his brief career, help 
to confirm the noble prophecy of " Union and Inde- 
pendence forever," held out by the great oracles of 
our early time. In contrast with this magnificent pict- 



30 ADDRESS. 

ure, how trifling appear the noblest aspirations of the 
statesmen of the past! They do indeed yet speak 
from their graves, in full warning of some of the dan- 
gers that may yet cross our path. Let their lessons 
of experience come in aid of the heroism of the hour! 
There is not a youth in the hearing of my voice at 
this moment, who, if he possess the requisite qualifi- 
cations, may not contribute more directly to the happy 
destiny of America, than did all its noblest orators 
upon that of either Greece or Rome. Shall the pa- 
triots, the holy teachers, the learned jurists, the in- 
spired bards prove themselves equal to the command- 
ing station which it may be the will of Heaven to 
summon them to assume ? 

I trust that under the guidance of Divine Provi- 
dence, by the zealous cooperation of all the noble in- 
stitutions which are infusing the true spirit of honor, 
of justice, and of patriotism among the ever-growing 
millions of this yet youthful community, the day may 
still arrive when the claim so rashly and prematurely 
made at the outset of our career may be ultimately 
confirmed by the spontaneous and according voices, 
not of ourselves, but of all exterior nations. Then, 
indeed, it might happen that instead of advancing a 
supercilious and ill-grounded pretension of our own, 
their voluntary acclaim will establish us as in very 
truth " the most enlightened nation of the world." 



